


Hereafter Lie Interviews

by domesticheart



Category: Homestuck, World War Z - Max Brooks
Genre: Angst, Interview-style Writing, Spoken Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 06:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4212276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticheart/pseuds/domesticheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Beta kids are there for the outbreak of the zombie virus. These are their stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hereafter Lie Interviews

**Honolulu, Hawaii**

**[The woman sitting across from me is hunched over what looks like an automatic firing mechanism. When I walk in, she looks up with bright green eyes and waves me over towards a seat. This is Jade Harley, heiress to Harley Laboratories of the late J. Harley-English, who is believed to have personally rescued hundreds of seafarers trying to escape the first outbreak of the zombie war. She is still regarded as one of the greatest heroines of the Great Panic, although one of the strangest.]**

I didn't realize that anything was wrong, at first. How could I? My island was literally cut off from the rest of the world, I was completely isolated from human contact except through the internet at times, and people are always asking me why I didn't act sooner! I mean, sure, I saw tons of ships going by, their little lights dangling and people running about on deck, but that was pretty normal for me. It was only when the first of the dead --- sorry, undead --- came ashore that I knew something was up.

**[She guiltily wrings her hands together, and then goes back to tinkering with the device.]**

I didn't know that so many people were... you know. I'd never had a real human conversation except for with my dog, Becquerel, anyways, so it would've been hard to understand. A bunch of those media folks want to say that I was a Feral, but that's just not true! Everything I could ever need was on that island, Grandpa had told me so. I didn't have to leave, or become a part of "society". Society would've been the death of me, what with the dead rising and all. I can't imagine what the cities were like in the beginning, although the footage I looked at later on was just awful.

_**Did you have any prior indications of the outbreak?** _

No... no, not really. The only things I saw were the ships, over-packed and teeming with human limbs. I didn't see anything wrong about that, I just thought they were fitting too many people on board. **[Jade giggles.]** Sorry, I guess that wasn't very funny. That was exactly what they were doing, too. But, I guess I should get to the whole saving a bunch of people part, right?

Okay. I was walking out on the beach, looking for seashells and crabs to catch in an industrial size bucket. I had a gun slung over my shoulder, too, a fabulous British Lee Enfield, locked and loaded! Grandpa always told me to be armed at all times, if you're wondering why I was lugging such a big thing around. I had several larger guns stashed around in rocky crevices and things, so I would never get caught unawares.

**[She wipes her eyes, then grins toothily at me.]**

Anyways, Bec was up and investigating something by the treeline, and I was minding my own business, when I heard what sounds just like footsteps behind me. Like, real soggy ones. Suddenly, Bec's going crazy, I'm turning around and looking right into the scratchy eyes of an almost entirely naked, festering undead guy, and there are at least a dozen more behind him! I take my gun, backing up a ways and almost tripping over my own feet, and let 'em have it! Bang, bang, bang! They drop like flies, but I could still see a few more heads peeking out from the surf.

Then, I look up, and what do you know! There's a cruise ship coming in behind them, I think an Icelandic one, and there are hundreds of people waving at me from on board. Hundreds. It was... really exciting, I tell you. I'd never seen so many people in my whole life... and so many undead stumbling out of the ocean. "Good gravy," I'd said to Bec, at the time. Then I'd gone to town with my gun until the first group of people had clambered down to the beach from large nets hanging over the side of the ship, and gave them enough time to get near the treeline.

It took a long time, and a few of the crew were able to help me out with their own weapon supply stashed on board, but everyone was able to make it off that blasted ship. I found out later that they had been packed onto it for weeks, stuffed into tiny cabins and uncomfortable spaces with soggy rats nipping at their ankles and toes. Absolutely disgusting. Foul sweat and mold made a bunch of people sick, too, and I was told that dozens of bodies were tossed overboard, some not even dead yet before they hit the choppy waves and sank to the living dead below. Those poor people. We were able to clear it out so that it could be used for a clean escape if the island became infested, but as you know that never happened. 

I came to an agreement with the ship's captain and a few people who stood up to be representatives for larger family groups, and we arranged for them to all stay on the island. There were roughly 674 people to take care of. Of course, because of the many undead, there were frequent watches set to dispatch any that meandered too close to the jungle, but as long as we were quiet the sound of our day to day lives wouldn't carry to them. That gave us enough time to construct watch towers, most using my Grandpa's old military vehicles and antique furniture. They were hidden between trees, and my gardens were behind them around my house and its labs. People were really good with taking care of my plants once they realized that they couldn't fish and that there was hardly any native wildlife beyond seabirds... I still remember when someone tried to catch Bec and roast him! I put a stop to that right quick, gave the guy a bloody nose for good measure with the butt of my rifle. How dare he!

You understand that I had been alone on that island for a long time, right? I was psychotically evaluated after this whole ordeal. It was strange to be around so many people, so suddenly. I didn't go nuts on anyone, like some people like to claim I did to get ahold of my family's money. There was a lot of times where I tried to hide away, but something would come up like a possible infection breach and I'd have to show up again. It was really trying, for sure...

**[She goes silent for a long moment, rubbing a calloused hand across her face.]**

I don't know. I guess some people didn't realize that I wasn't certain of how to react to them, much less speak to them. Some people got really angry when I didn't understand what they were asking me to find them, like toiletries and deodorant and stuff. I had all kinds of weapons, sure, but no kind of comforts. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I had never seen a television or radio before. I had computers, dozens at least, but none with a stable internet connection. I could only access the simplest of webpages, you see, and news sites and e-mail didn't seem all that important. I would watch cartoons and stuff, nothing big. It's almost laughable, how alone and ignorant of the rest of the world I was.

Do you know why I'm here? They think I'm nutso. Cracked, messed up in the head. After they'd found Grandpa... well, you've heard the stories. It was an old Harley family tradition, and he'd accidentally shot himself when I was a teenager. He had even left instructions for me in the event that anything happened to him, it wasn't like I could ignore his last wish. It was hardly monstrous compared to what other people were doing during and after the Great Panic. Have you heard about the cannibalizing of the sick and weak up north? The people who made like they were Zack and attacked perfectly healthy people?

**[She trails off, face souring before going soft again.]**

They got me locked up in here for a reason. I'm brilliant, they say; a genius. I've devised the greatest weapons to take down the living dead, way better than what we had before the war. On my island, I had set up over fifty different series of parapets to keep Zack out. I'd used all of my old guns and then made up some more, better for precision kills and the like, to keep those people alive and kicking inside the walls. They don't want me to go off and get myself killed by accident. I'm too useful, too precious of a resource to let go. It's not so bad, I guess. I get fed and watered regularly, if you'd like to know.

I just wish they hadn't taken my dog.

\---

**Long Island, New York**

**[ Rose Lalonde sits across from me, her odd purple-colored eyes focused on my recording equipment most of the time as she speaks, but occasionally they slide back to look piercingly into my own. She was a survivor of the Great Panic when a child, now an acclaimed author who had been in New York for a few days when the outbreak began. She had literally been in the thick of things, but had performed remarkably in evading the living dead and dispatching them with ease. Now a full-grown woman, she wears dark makeup and writes about the more effective ways to kill a member of the living dead, as well as her own experiences. ]**

I was a sickly child. From the day of my birth my mother doubted that I would survive infancy, but I managed it with the aid of sufficient medication. When young, especially before the days of the first outbreak, I had been mostly confined to the house, only venturing out for school and doctor's visits. Mother was extremely adamant about not letting me contract some viral disease on the off-chance that I interacted with other children.

**[She smiles wryly, mouth twisting oddly as if with some private joke.]**

Yes, if only she could have known about what was coming. I certainly didn't; neither did the rest of the world. I think my situation was very much similar to that of Ms. Harley, do you know of her? Of course you do. I didn't have my own private island or any large systems of laboratories underlying the groundwork of my home, as the rumors go, but I was isolated. Although, I suppose hers was very different. All those years, with just a fool dog to keep her company. It makes you question just how psychologically affected she is— but I digress. Back to myself.

It was early in the morning when my mother left for her work, an atrocious day job that had her out and about for most hours of the day and night. I had prepared myself for a peaceful, quiet day all to myself, a perfect time to write and express my very tumultuous, teenaged feelings. But that day... it had been different. I started to hear sirens, settled on a couch in the comfort of my sitting room. The day outside was clear, a bit dry, but still cold as ever. There hadn't been any snow or ice, which I shall curse till the end of my days for perhaps that may have slowed the progression of the infection.

My mother came home early. I had been listening to the noise from outside, distantly. She tore through the house, rampaging like a madwoman and searching for something. I noticed a mark on her arm, a gouged out section of flesh. In her frenzy, she seemed to notice that my eyes were drawn to it, and explained that there had been a man outside who had attacked her moments before, and that she was looking for some kind of antiseptic fluid. I didn't know where this antiseptic was, but hardly had time to think about it before she was behaving strangely. She grew... sluggish, then would thrash jerkily against the kitchen counter, as if her limbs were being forcibly disjointed. Then, that terrible groaning started, I am sure you have heard that before, if not in person, surely on recordings or the television.

I was frightened, called her name as she clawed against the counter for purchase. Hearing my voice, she had turned on me, lips dripping a brownish fluid that I didn't have any prior indication of. In a flash, quite literally a flash, she was starting for me, stalking forward and red-painted lips curled back into a snarl like that of a rabid dog. She stopped just short, however, hands almost reaching but not yet touching, manicured nails cracked and gruesomely bleeding from where she had dug them deep into the granite countertop. I was certain that it must have been painful, but then I did not know of the undead's nonexistent concept of pain.

She... she sniffed at me, as a predator might inspect potential prey. Her eyes stared right through my face, distant and lacking any emotion. It was like... she did not recognize me as her child. Her own daughter.

**[Her words lower to almost a whisper, and I have to lean forwards to catch those last few.]**

They were glazed over, her eyes. None of the normal parental fervor that normally lingered behind them, no comfort that she had so often tried to offer me and that I had resolutely refused. I hadn't liked the woman for the longest time, she was a drunkard and spent many rare evenings at home sampling from an assortment of bottles. Not sampling, pardon my wording, but guzzling. She had not been a violent drunk, as many have asked me. I was the one who distanced myself from her, the only person I would be able to come into frequent contact with besides my doctors.

She didn't attack me, or even try to grab me. I learned later that it was because of my terminal illness; I was not a healthy host for the virus to thrive in, and so she merely shoved me aside, sending me stumbling backwards as she made for the open door. I entertained the thought of following after her for a moment, calling to her and trying to bring her back into the house, but... I did not. I watched her leave, watched through the glass window panes as she shrieked piercingly and ran after one of our neighbors' vans, the kind built for families to all fit into. I sometimes wonder if that family ever made it out of the city. I never saw my mother again, after that. Is it so wrong, for me to have wished to go with her? The undead do not hang around one place for long if there are no suitable, warm bodies to feast upon.

There are those who, during the outbreak and while escaping countries teeming with the undead, brought their turned family members with them in crates and boxes and carry-ons. I will not sugar-coat this; those people were idiots. They brought them to safe zones, onto airplanes and cargo ships; killed hundreds of people by bringing the undead into the midst of the living. There is no cure for them. And even if there were, how could they have lived with themselves after trying to cannibalize someone? What kind of horrific mental toll would it take on the human mind to know that, once, you were a monster and had turned on your own family to feed upon their flesh?

I was able to remain in my home for quite some time. Sometimes I would see people driving wildly past, screaming, reanimated monsters in their wake, but that soon became something that didn't happen anymore. Whenever I would sleep at night, I'd hear the undead crying loudly towards one another, their howls ringing outside the walls. They could hear me when I walked through the living room, stared unseeingly at me whenever I ate my morning meal. At times I would go out to forage for food, bundling up in several winter coats and trying not to stare too hard at the carnage around me. The dead would shuffle around me, starting at my footsteps and jerking after me but never giving chase. I suppose I should be thankful for that.

A few military persons found me after several months of this. I heard the thudding of footsteps outside my house, heavy and crunching in the snow, and then a snuffling noise at my front door. I opened it, expecting a member of the living dead with maybe half its body gone and dragging itself across the ground upon its torso, but was greeted by a very heavily-armed woman with a dog standing beside her. She was very surprised to see me alive, and ran a quick check of the house to make sure I hadn't stashed a family member inside some closet.

I was told that most hordes of the undead had headed north, to Canada and Alaska after fleeing crowds of people. This woman took me to a chopper, and I must say that I clung to her arm like a lifeline the entire time. There was a militairy base that I was taken to, crude but very well fortified, and I was questioned. They gave me a place to sleep, a warm enough bed, were kind to me and gave me proper medical attention. The woman who had found me, I became especially close with. She was... well... I told her about my mother.

**[She stares into the middle distance, face barren of emotion but voice hitching with it.]**

I only wish... well, wishing is ridiculous at this point, but... I only wish that I might've been better to her before she died.

\---

**Prudhoe Bay, Alaska**

**[To all appearances, Johnathan Egbert seems like a very happy, vibrant man. He smiles the minute I walk into the room, taking my hand into his own and frequently thanking me for coming to speak with him. He is another survivor of the Great Panic, one who had gone north where the undead freeze for most of the year before coming closer during the inevitable thaw. He had gone mostly on his own, although he was only thirteen at the time, all the way from Seattle, Washington to Alaska. Whenever he looks away, there is a distant, sorrowful look in his blue eyes.]**

It was my birthday. My dad got up early in the morning to bake me a cake and everything, the whole shabang. I came downstairs, tired and yawning, and was promptly scared out of my skin when he blew a party horn in my face. I was real mad about that, but my dad was always a real prankster, so I didn't hold it against him. We ate some cake and he went to his study to gather up his briefcase and files for work. My dad was a businessman for some company, I can't remember the name of it but they never sent me any monetary aid when he... when he....

**[John trails off, going silent.]**

_**What happened to your father?** _

One came through the window, grabbing him and yanked him backwards, almost through the glass but not quite. I heard him yelling, then screaming for me, the sounds of a struggle ringing down the hall. I ran towards the sound, saw his arm sticking through the window and a horrible, slack-jawed look on his face when this ferocious man sank his teeth into his shoulder. Blood was everywhere, from the glass sticking into my dad and the guy trying to break in. Blood stained my dad's white shirt collar, sluggishly dripping down his arm and the guy released him, presumably after hearing some other poor sap out in the street. I'll admit it, I was screaming by then, shouting at my dad and trying to dial 911 on his desk phone. The line was busy. No one answered.

I didn't see the worst of the spasms, but heard him scrabbling to his feet, saw him move to stand in my peripheral vision and sway towards me and I managed to move just in time as he reached out. I ran out of there like a shot, barely seeing the expression on my dad's face but knowing that it wasn't natural, wasn't right in the glimpses I caught of it. He was snarling after me, crashing into furniture like a madman in his pursuit. I nearly slipped over a grooved rug that he'd bought from one of the guys at work for a nice price, but managed to right myself and clamber across the floor past the kitchen which had been filled with joy but a few minutes before.

He was right behind me. I knew he would catch up eventually. This wasn't my dad anymore. This thing... it was hunting me. Wanted to eat me, or spread the infection as I'm told. It had a singular thought running through its festering head, that it wanted to rip me apart and give the virus another host. The earth was a living body... and we humans were the contagion. I was terrified, and knew that I had to find some way to get away from my... not my dad. Soon, that other guy might come back, bring some of his friends, and then what would I do? Run some more, I guess, until they caught up with me.

I slid past an open hallway and saw the basement door. I was about a minute ahead of that thing chasing me. If only I could trap it inside, is what I thought then. I didn't know that maybe it would have been better to get my baseball bat from my room and bash his head in, but... I still sort of felt like... well, you know how it was for most people when their close family changed. I was no different. I thought, maybe he could be brought back to his senses, back to his son, and then he would stop trying to kill me and help me figure things out like he always did. And so I waited, waited as he came running straight for me down the hall, face grotesquely twisted and curled fingers grasping at me. At the last moment I stood aside, pressed myself against the wall and let him tumble down into the dark basement. I heard a crack; it must've been his neck, or a leg, but I still caught sight of him trying to climb back up towards me as I slammed the door shut, locked and bolted it.

I... I sat there for a minute, listening to him banging on the door and growling from inside. I was only a kid. I didn't know what to do. I certainly didn't want to head outside, for fear that something else might be out there, but I also knew I couldn't be sticking around here for much longer. The noises my dad was making might draw a whole hungry pack of them in. Afterwards I was told by some guy who was formerly in the military that this had been a good decision. To leave, I mean. But I was so scared, I didn't even want to go back to my room or past my dad's study but I couldn't take the behavior of my dad for much longer, either. So, I left.

**[He breathes in sharply through his nose, closing his eyes at the painful memory.]**

The street was decimated. Torn up, cars ripped open and all kinds of nasty gore spilling out. Probably somebody's intestines ripping against the glass when they were dragged out through the windows. There were screams in the distance; I think the worst of them must have moved past my block already. I saw a few people walking strangely in the street, shuffling aimlessly until a car whisked past. A red Sedan, with only one occupant. He pulled over to the curb quick and yelled at me to get in, and I just tossed the idea of stranger danger from my mind when I saw that the undead were coming. I jumped in, barely having time to slam the door before the guy was tearing out of there and I could see the undead receding in the distance, still chasing after us. You know that little label that says, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear"? Yeah.

**[He laughs, hollowly.]**

The guy dropped me off somewhere else, I don't know where, just out on some dusty road. Said he didn't want some dumb kid hanging around for long. I tried going after him, tears streaming down my face, but he went on without me. Just left me there. The Great Panic really revealed the true colors in some people, some uglier than most. Eventually someone else came by and picked me up, a family, this time. They were nice, although the parents made me get out and prove that I didn't have any bites or scratches. A literal strip search. I was against it at first until they explained how people become infected. The kids were nice, too, and we made it all the way up north together without stopping for any other hitchhikers.

I heard the adults talking about me, one night. The father was really adamant about sending me off, saying they wouldn't have enough supplies to feed me and their own children, much less themselves. But the mom defended me. Said she wouldn't let him lay a finger on any one of their family if he broached the topic ever again, said that I was a part of their family now. He never brought it up again.

I managed to get a job in the military while we were in Canada, got a place to sleep and scarce rations. I wanted to do something to fight this thing. I was young and stupid, reckless. They let me in though. Short on fighters, I guess, or people willing to put up a fight. Many guys and gals in there had lost their families, partners, everything. I wasn't alone in that department, at least. I got along pretty well with most everyone, recieved quick training before being sent out literally to the front lines. Did you know that they sent all kinds of inexperienced kids to the front in order to keep the Zeds at bay, or at least distract them while the big guns up top got ready to fight? Sent thousands of young people to their doom that way. 

Although I guess it was better than being curled up on your living room floor while the dead broke in through the windows, eh?

\---

**South Padre Island, Texas**

**[Dave Strider looks at me sceptically as I walk in, eyes unreadable behind his dark aviator shades. There are several swords hanging on the walls, some appearing to be antiques but still without protective glass surrounding them. He also has one leaning against the side of his wicker chair, and at the nightstand beside the small, scratchy-looking cot. Mr. Strider is an active vigilante over preventing widespread breakouts of the zombie virus like there once were. He nods once, signalling to me that I may begin recording what he has to say.]**

I hated Texas. Absolutely hated it. It was too hot, I was sweating through my shirt half the time and dying of thirst for the rest. Seriously. I tried all the time to convince my Bro that we should head out, go someplace cooler like New York or even our neighboring state Arkansas. Hell, anything to get away from that constant, hellish heat. We never did, though. I think I might've almost had Bro convinced by the time the first zombies trickled in. I know the "proper" term isn't zombie, but that's what I call 'em. Deal with it.

We didn't own any firearms, just swords. My brother was a real stickler for swords man, like you wouldn't believe. We trained all the time with them, it was grueling out there under the sun on that hot rooftop. I didn't really like doing it, I complained a lot, but now I'm pretty thankful my Bro was so adamant about me learning how to properly wield all types of swords. Saved my life more than a couple times.

**[He pats the sword at his hip, a corner of his mouth twitching up into an almost-smile.]**

You know that Jade Harley chick? I met her, a few times. We were raised in a similar fashion I guess, so we had a lot to talk about. Only, her grandpa was all about guns and computers while my Bro was particular about swords. She was pretty cool. Could definitely take care of herself; it was awesome how she saved a bunch of people. I wish I could say the same for myself. My films haven't done much to help the good of the world, only to boost morale somehow. Most cinemas aren't even open anymore, you know, so it's not a good business. But it's what I'd always wanted to do, and the government gave me a job. Most of it was just speeches or something, talking to people who were in the troops and telling them that they were doing a good thing, sacrificing their lives and all that. I actually volunteered a few times, had to help out when a few Zeds popped up. No big.

Uh, I guess I should talk more about how I got to where I am today, right? Right, cool. Alright, so it was hot as hell in Houston that year. As most years go, anyway. The asphalt was literally stinking of oil, dripping down into the sewers like nobody's business. I went out to get some Taco Bell, right, and I see this homeless guy going absolutely nuts on some other dude about halfway there. I thought, geez, is someone getting mugged in broad daylight? Is the guy sick or desperate? But all those thoughts cavorted right out o' my head when he looked up at me, face covered in blood and body tissue, some of it stuck in his scraggly beard. He came at me, and... well, I'll be honest. You interviewer people are all above cross-checking honesty, huh? I didn't pull a totally sick ninja move on him or anything like my Bro might have. I cut my losses and checked right out of there, sprinting as fast as my legs would take me back to the apartment.

I was breathing pretty hard by the time I got back, but I noticed that a few people were puttering about the dumpsters outside the law office across the street, looking straight up into the windows and making like they were trying to claw their way up the walls. I walked as fast and as quietly as I could, like Bro had taught me to, and went unnoticed until I slammed the door. Those undead are drawn in by sound; it's like a beacon, something that usually means easy, oblivious food. Anyway, I went up the stairs as quickly as physically possible, sneakers scuffing loudly up the steps. Bro must've realized that something was up, so he popped up pretty soon and asked what was up.

In a sorta embarrassing panic, I told him about the homeless dude and the people outside, and he went to look out the window, seeing that there were several already crowding around our doorway. He tossed me a slightly less shitty katana from thin air, seemingly, and then we were heading up onto the roof. By then the sirens began wailing, blaring from the tops of other buildings. I saw a fire burning in the distance, like something might have exploded. Bro silently pointed to a nearby roof that we could probably jump to without plummeting to our deaths, and we made for it, the zombies on the street below still unaware of our escape. Their was a crash from below, wood splintering and caving in. I thought they might've gotten through our door and were on the hunt, and I was on the verge of a major freak out.

I don't know how Bro did it, at the time. He was so calm and collected about it, the spitting image of cool. I always admired him for that aspect of his personality, but he could be stone cold most of the time. Not exactly an ideal guardian, yeah. He told me that we had to make for the ocean, because maybe we could find a boat or something. Maybe he'd always been expecting something like this to happen. I don't know, I wasn't into zombie movies. My Bro was secretive about most everything; or maybe he'd just decided to check the news for once. I know I never did. Not much about the outbreak got on the news at first, government trying to prevent a panic and all that. Fat lot of good that did. The Great Panic, they call it...

**[Dave shrugs.]**

We made most of our way safely along the tops of buildings, but we knew that eventually we would have to climb down and find a fire escape or something to scale back up on. That eventuality was terrifying to me... I didn't want to face up to my fears and go head to head with one of those things again. Ever. But, we were trapped at the top of a building, it was late afternoon, and things seemed quiet down there. We went down, treading carefully and trying not to make a peep. When we reached the sidewalk, I figured we were in the clear, if only for a moment. I was so relieved, but Bro still seemed cautious. I walked out, stupidly, around the bend of a building. If only I knew what would happen next.

A person came out of nowhere. Made a grab at me, clacking his teeth together and making knashing motions as if trying to taste my flesh from a distance. Miming eating me. God, it was awful. But something was different, not like the other one I'd seen. Sure, they were still grimy, worn all over, but something was different about the eyes. They weren't all scratched up and totally void of life. There was a passion there, a fervor to live. I think, at least. I learned later that some clever group of people had nicknamed these guys 'quislings'. People who pretended to be zombies, but still got eaten by them and were carrying even worse diseases because of a greater susceptibility to bacteria and scientific stuff like that. You should ask Harley about them, I'm sure she took on a few when she got to the mainland.

Bro shoved me aside, took a nasty bite to the arm that had been meant for my throat. He sliced that guy nearly clean in two with his sword, and the quisling went down without another sound. You'd think that, still being alive, they'd still groan in pain or something, but I've heard that they shut themselves off from it. It's whack, I still feel sick just thinking about it.

We climbed up another fire escape, Bro nursing his arm but trying to be nonchalant about it. As if another human being took a chunk out of his body every day and swallowed it. I asked if he was okay, but he told me we just needed to make it to the shore. Then, we'd be alright and he'd take a look at it. I should've insisted on it, but the godawful sounds from below had me freaked. We skedaddled across a few more roofs, and repeated that same damning action as before but without any other encounters besides getting chased a few times. I noticed that Bro was getting slower after a while, about a day later, and that he'd taken off his shades to peer at the ground more than a couple times. I assumed his vision must've been getting blurry from fatigue, and said that maybe we should rest for a while. We weren't far off from the ocean, anyways, we could see it from here, and there weren't any stairs or doorways that opened up onto this roof. We would be totally safe.

After thinking for a long time, my brother nodded, lay down without another word and faced away from me. I watched his breathing steady out, and noticed how flushed his face was and the cold sweat covering his forehead. Like he had a fever or something. I brushed it off; my Bro was too cool to get sick.

When I woke up in morning, he was dead.

Figures.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so, so sorry. Why did I write this. Too many feelings.


End file.
